Vista Business
Author
Discussion

Funk

Original Poster:

27,779 posts

240 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Can someone please call the company I work for and tell them that the decision to migrate to Vista Business was the worst decision since Hitler said, "I wonder what Poland's like this time of year."

Seriously, as an OS this thing sucks. I've just spent the last 20 mins booting up and down in an effort to get it to pick up its network connections. It shows it's connected, but never picks up an IP address when it comes back out of suspend. This really is the worst OS I've used in a very, very long time. We had XP before, it was faster and more stable; my laptop gets suspended and resumed probably 10-15 times a day out of necessity and it's really, really starting to do my noggin in.

Our IS team have said, "Nothing we can do about it mate, reboot it again."

Grrr. My productivity is going to st this morning.

TheD

3,144 posts

230 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Why on earth would they upgrade to vista while Windows 7 Pro has been out there for so long. That is mental. Every other company is by passing Vista

SGirl

7,924 posts

292 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
wavey

It probably doesn't help much, but I'm using Vista Business as well. It works fine here. Mind you, I did disable User Account Control, that seems to have made it a tad more stable. The software I was using on it had problems while UAC was enabled, now it still crashes but only once in a blue moon. I've no idea why this should be so, but I suspect some kind of issue between UAC and the software I'm using. It took long enough for the company that developed the software just to make it compatible with 64-bit Vista...

Dammit, having said that the thing will now die on me. Sod's Law. wink

Funk

Original Poster:

27,779 posts

240 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
It's on about 2,000 laptops. When they commenced the upgrades (speccing, testing, sorting legacy apps etc) W7 wasn't out. MS promised it wouldn't be here until early 2010 (this was back in early '09). As it was, the new laptops rolled out at the back end of last year and W7 was released - but too late for them to reset and go back to check everything with W7.

I know a couple of the techies on the team and to say they were pissed with MS was an understatement. So we're stuck with Vista until the company can justify updating to W7.

I would also suspect that - at the time - the company was given a good deal to be one of the 'pioneers' using Vista Business. I don't know any other company of our size that uses it. I've had one of the techs tell me I can go back to my X61 Thinkpad with XPP if I want - I'm seriously considering it.

anonymous-user

85 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
I don't know any other company of our size that uses it.
wink It's st, Vista, biggest pile of poop since Windows Millenium.

Funk

Original Poster:

27,779 posts

240 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
It's certainly doing my head in. I think the tech team are a miffed that the rollout of new machines has been mired in so many glitches and problems. Mine's just been properly getting on my tits this morning; more so than usual.

Jinx

12,022 posts

291 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
It's certainly doing my head in. I think the tech team are a miffed that the rollout of new machines has been mired in so many glitches and problems. Mine's just been properly getting on my tits this morning; more so than usual.
I used to have a problem with net connections after wake up - but it was sorted by the last service pack. Are the machines all up to date?

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

257 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Dave_ST220 said:
Funk said:
I don't know any other company of our size that uses it.
wink It's st, Vista, biggest pile of poop since Windows Millenium.
Nonsense.

Windows 7, in terms of drivers and infrastructure, is more-or-less the same as Vista. The vast bulk of the new stuff in 7 is in the GUI layer.

I've got Vista Business on this work laptop and the only thing I really have a gripe about is that it doesn't have any DVD playback codecs installed.

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

257 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
Can someone please call the company I work for and tell them that the decision to migrate to Vista Business was the worst decision since Hitler said, "I wonder what Poland's like this time of year."

Seriously, as an OS this thing sucks. I've just spent the last 20 mins booting up and down in an effort to get it to pick up its network connections. It shows it's connected, but never picks up an IP address when it comes back out of suspend. This really is the worst OS I've used in a very, very long time. We had XP before, it was faster and more stable; my laptop gets suspended and resumed probably 10-15 times a day out of necessity and it's really, really starting to do my noggin in.

Our IS team have said, "Nothing we can do about it mate, reboot it again."

Grrr. My productivity is going to st this morning.
You've got a st laptop. Vista Business on my computer suspends and resumes just fine (Dell Latitude D630).

arcturus

1,498 posts

294 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Ditto. Been using Vista Business for several years with no problems at all. On desktops and laptops. In fact I wouldn't go back to XP if paid to do so. On the other hand Win7 is nicer than Vista.

Funk

Original Poster:

27,779 posts

240 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Jinx said:
Funk said:
It's certainly doing my head in. I think the tech team are a miffed that the rollout of new machines has been mired in so many glitches and problems. Mine's just been properly getting on my tits this morning; more so than usual.
I used to have a problem with net connections after wake up - but it was sorted by the last service pack. Are the machines all up to date?
Service Pack 2, it installed some Windows updates over the weekend as well so it should be up to date.

CommanderJameson said:
Funk said:
Can someone please call the company I work for and tell them that the decision to migrate to Vista Business was the worst decision since Hitler said, "I wonder what Poland's like this time of year."

Seriously, as an OS this thing sucks. I've just spent the last 20 mins booting up and down in an effort to get it to pick up its network connections. It shows it's connected, but never picks up an IP address when it comes back out of suspend. This really is the worst OS I've used in a very, very long time. We had XP before, it was faster and more stable; my laptop gets suspended and resumed probably 10-15 times a day out of necessity and it's really, really starting to do my noggin in.

Our IS team have said, "Nothing we can do about it mate, reboot it again."

Grrr. My productivity is going to st this morning.
You've got a st laptop. Vista Business on my computer suspends and resumes just fine (Dell Latitude D630).
Mine's a Dell Latitude E4300. It's not an issue suspending/resuming as such, it's that when it resumes it never finds the network interface properly. Weirdly the wireless seems to work ok - perhaps I'll just use that instead and hope it doesn't drop when I'm in the middle of doing something on SAP.

Edited by Funk on Tuesday 20th April 10:39

TonyToniTone

3,928 posts

280 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Looks like there is a problem with the IS team if they did not pick these problems up during testing or pilot.

lestag

4,614 posts

307 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
Mine's a Dell Latitude E4300. It's not an issue suspending/resuming as such, it's that when it resumes it never finds the network interface properly. Weirdly the wireless seems to work ok - perhaps I'll just use that instead and hope it doesn't drop when I'm in the middle of doing something on SAP.
Probably a dell network driver issue , not Vista. May pay to troll dell support website for network card drivers for the laptop model in question and in yours is not up to date, give the linky to the IT team. or maybe abios update

I run a HP6530b with vista and it is rock solid , apart from the occasionaly flakey HP Update software.

neil_bolton

17,113 posts

295 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Quite often, especially with that level of units, a company will test and test and test a version of Windows with all flavours and incarnations of the legacy software and settings that are used within the business.

This takes a lot of time, and will mean that liaison with third party software support and developers will be happening in order to get offical support. Only then will they roll it out.

Also bear in mind that licensing restrictions are a major issue; I could get upgrade licensing on Open License from XP to Vista, but I couldn't go from XP to Windows 7 unless I buy new seats.

Lot's and lots of reasons why; for us, our VPN client software doesn't work under 7, but does under Vista - and until we get the support, we can't sensibly upgrade even without the workaround that I can use.

Windows 7 hasn't been out all that long, even though the majority of us are very fmailiar with it; in actual fact, it's not even officially a year old, and certainly we haven't had the fabled first Service Pack that so many of us battle hardened pros wait for.


neil_bolton

17,113 posts

295 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
Mine's a Dell Latitude E4300. It's not an issue suspending/resuming as such, it's that when it resumes it never finds the network interface properly. Weirdly the wireless seems to work ok - perhaps I'll just use that instead and hope it doesn't drop when I'm in the middle of doing something on SAP.
To be fair to Vista, the Dell driver support is shockingly crap at the moment; we have a E4300 and it's beset by Wifi issues and network card resume issues, ending in us moving away onto rock solid Lenovo's.

bonsai

2,015 posts

211 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Funk said:
Jinx said:
Funk said:
It's certainly doing my head in. I think the tech team are a miffed that the rollout of new machines has been mired in so many glitches and problems. Mine's just been properly getting on my tits this morning; more so than usual.
I used to have a problem with net connections after wake up - but it was sorted by the last service pack. Are the machines all up to date?
Service Pack 2, it installed some Windows updates over the weekend as well so it should be up to date.

CommanderJameson said:
Funk said:
Can someone please call the company I work for and tell them that the decision to migrate to Vista Business was the worst decision since Hitler said, "I wonder what Poland's like this time of year."

Seriously, as an OS this thing sucks. I've just spent the last 20 mins booting up and down in an effort to get it to pick up its network connections. It shows it's connected, but never picks up an IP address when it comes back out of suspend. This really is the worst OS I've used in a very, very long time. We had XP before, it was faster and more stable; my laptop gets suspended and resumed probably 10-15 times a day out of necessity and it's really, really starting to do my noggin in.

Our IS team have said, "Nothing we can do about it mate, reboot it again."

Grrr. My productivity is going to st this morning.
You've got a st laptop. Vista Business on my computer suspends and resumes just fine (Dell Latitude D630).
Mine's a Dell Latitude E4300. It's not an issue suspending/resuming as such, it's that when it resumes it never finds the network interface properly. Weirdly the wireless seems to work ok - perhaps I'll just use that instead and hope it doesn't drop when I'm in the middle of doing something on SAP.

Edited by Funk on Tuesday 20th April 10:39
I don't have Vista/7 access here but going from memory try this:

Go into the power management settings, and somewhere in the advanced settings under the network card options should be a setting to "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" - set that to NO and see if that helps.

Funk

Original Poster:

27,779 posts

240 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Thanks for the suggestions, but the laptops are heavily locked-down - I can't even change the desktop picture, let alone the power management settings.

Neil > we went the other way, leaving behind rock-solid Lenovo ThinkPads (X60 & X61). Such a shame, they were cracking laptops and so robust in both physical and OS sense. I think the switch to Dells will, in the long run, be a false economy.

anonymous-user

85 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
CommanderJameson said:
Dave_ST220 said:
Funk said:
I don't know any other company of our size that uses it.
wink It's st, Vista, biggest pile of poop since Windows Millenium.
Nonsense.

Windows 7, in terms of drivers and infrastructure, is more-or-less the same as Vista. The vast bulk of the new stuff in 7 is in the GUI layer.

I've got Vista Business on this work laptop and the only thing I really have a gripe about is that it doesn't have any DVD playback codecs installed.
Err, where did i claim anything about Windows 7?

paddyhasneeds

68,259 posts

241 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
I've always thought the key to OS's, especially with laptops, is to keep as little third-party drivers/management utilities on them as you possibly can.

Dell ControlPoint is an utter abomination IMO.

Vista itself, yes sure I'd prefer Windows 7 having used it, but tbh I'd be looking more at how the image they used has been configured than I would the actual OS (making some assumptions here like SP2 etc.).

CommanderJameson

22,096 posts

257 months

Tuesday 20th April 2010
quotequote all
Dave_ST220 said:
CommanderJameson said:
Dave_ST220 said:
Funk said:
I don't know any other company of our size that uses it.
wink It's st, Vista, biggest pile of poop since Windows Millenium.
Nonsense.

Windows 7, in terms of drivers and infrastructure, is more-or-less the same as Vista. The vast bulk of the new stuff in 7 is in the GUI layer.

I've got Vista Business on this work laptop and the only thing I really have a gripe about is that it doesn't have any DVD playback codecs installed.
Err, where did i claim anything about Windows 7?
Meant to quote someone up there ^^ who muttered about Windows 7. Didn't.

Sorry about that.